A fur sighted vision

Kate Rawles advocates a moral framework for the treatment of animals in response to Roger Scruton's dismissal of animal 'rights'. What comes to mind on hearing the word "animal"? For many, the word summons images of dogs and cats, perhaps an elephant, even a whale. But most animals are not mammals. As the biologist Robert May once put it, "as a rough approximation, every living thing on Earth is an insect."

"Animals", therefore is a word which needs to be used with some care, and calls for equal treatment of all of them may well be misguided. Thus far, I agree with philosopher Roger Scruton's argument set out in the THES a few weeks ago (see panel, right). Showing respect for animals does not necessarily require we have nothing to do with them; that we institute a sort of human/non-human apartheid. Human/animal relationships can be beneficial for both sides. Indeed, where such relationships are appropriate, this should be our aim.

Scruton limits his attention to sentient, conscious animals - those capable of experiencing pleasure and pain. I agree that the question of how humans should treat such animals is a pressing moral issue. It is also one which, like broader environmental concerns, challenges the ethical frameworks within which issues about the treatment of others have traditionally been discussed. Questions about how we should treat animals, other living things, habitats and ecosystems throw up intriguing doubts about the adequacy of our ethical ideas, including rights.

The concept of rights has a long and valiant history and, as a political instrument, has often been used to great effect. Nevertheless, it brings a lot of baggage with it, some of which we may be better off without. An example is its inherent individualism. Rights are designed, as it were, with "normal" adult humans in mind. The language of rights is thus already less than ideally suited to articulating the claims of non-humans, who may be very different indeed from the paradigm rights-bearer.

The debate needs to move on. We need a way of expressing the view that to do certain things to other animals, such as cause them acute pain, is simply unacceptable. Furthermore, animals make this claim on us in their own right. We need to say the same about our dealings with other humans and for similar reasons. We have similar reasons because many species of animals are similar to us in morally relevant respects. Some form communities, many have families and social relationships. The point is not that we should give such animals honorary membership of the human race, but that we should allow them space for their own forms of life. In the light of evolutionary theory, analogies between their lives and ours are only to be expected. Scruton's attempt to draw a clean, sharp line between humans and other animals is unconvincing.

On the basis of the affinities recognised above, some general principles can be advanced. Humans, whether in labs, farms, zoos, circuses or the hunting field, should not: * inflict acute or prolonged suffering on animals * keep them in a way which prevents them from performing, for extended periods of time, the behaviour in their natural repertoire * prevent them from enjoying the social life appropriate to members of their kind.

Doing any of these things may sometimes be justified - but the justification must be a strong one. For example, it might be acceptable to inflict suffering on an animal in self-defence, or to save the animal's life or health, or if it were the only available thing to eat. It would not be acceptable when not crucial to human or animal survival or well-being.

Of course, no one denies that there are limits to what counts as acceptable treatment of animals. The debate is about where these limits lie. My vision would clearly prohibit certain forms of agriculture and the extended transportation of live animals. It would call for improvement in slaughter houses, reduction in animal experiments and improvement in the living conditions of those laboratory animals that are left. And the elimination of sport-hunting.

John Webster, head of the school of veterinary science at Bristol, proposed that nothing the moral philosophers say is ever going to help a single animal. I agree that we should get on with reducing animal suffering in the enormous number of cases where we know that it still exists and that it is unnecessary. But some response is still needed for the many people who do not share Webster's conviction that animal suffering matters. Moreover, one often encounters the view that the issues are just a matter of getting the facts right (are animals in transportation suffering? Is deforestation likely to change the climate?) But these discussions are always premissed on value judgements that so often go unnoticed. It is crucial to bring these out into the open, so they too can be debated rather than assumed. Why should we care about animal suffering? Is it appropriate to use animals as a human resource? These are inescapably philosophical issues, about which moral philosophers have something to say. We are in a climate that is extraordinarily hostile to public debate about things that matter - especially about basic values. This must change. So let us get on with taking the issue seriously, and creating a climate in which constructive public debate can flourish.

Kate Rawles is lecturer in philosophy at Lancaster University. Next week David Wiggins, Wykeham professor of logic at Oxford, advances another side of the debate.

THE BIRTH OF ANIMAL RIGHTS

In the 1970s Peter Singer published Animal Liberation, in which he argued that animals should be included in human moral calculations because they can suffer, and that moral decisions should be utilitarian - causing the least amount of suffering overall. Singer's manifesto was soon thought insufficient. The United States philosopher Tom Regan showed that utilitarianism could justify any atrocity against animals if benefits accrued to sufficient humans. Regan's solution was to confer "inherent value" on animals, giving them an inviolability that could not be cancelled out by the mass interest of others. Thus came the idea of animal rights - fitting neatly into the US obsession that all moral issues should be phrased in terms of rights.

Aisling Irwin

ROGER SCRUTON'S VIEW The sources of morality emerge from four roots: the "calculus of rights and duties", the feelings of sympathy, the attitude to vice and virtue, and "piety". But rights belong only to creatures of a kind that may form "moral communities" established by dialogue and negotiation, in which the sovereignty of the individual is mutually recognised. Since animals lack the mental capacity to do this, they do not have rights. Our conduct towards them must therefore be governed by sympathy, the ethic of vice and virtue and piety. If we accept this then much that is regarded as right (eg factory farming) ought to be condemned, while much that is condemned is morally acceptable (eg hunting and the raising of animals for meat).

Roger Scruton

Additional reporting by Aisling Irwin and Roger Scruton.